christianityfandomcom-20200214-history
Christianity Knowledge Base:Community Portal
Welcome to the CKB Community Portal! This is the central discussion page for any issues or announcements related to CKB. If you are starting an extended discussion on a specific topic, please use that article's talk page; you can then link to the discussion here, something like, "I've got several comments about the Jesus page that I'd like people to comment on." Content from before May 2006 is located at Archive 1. Does this site consider all, any or some Latter Day Saints to be Christians?? I'm RLDS myself, and I consider myself to be a Christian. I am unsure whether Utah Mormons are really Christians or not. Some definately aren't in my opinion, but then, some definately aren't in every denomination. (even Tim LaHaye would agree with me on that point, evidently) I would suggest that this "Christianity" wikia adopt some kind of policy defining what a "Christian" is relative to the "Christian Point of View". Perhaps a Christian is anyone who claims to follow Christ ... but that opens some doors to some divergent beliefs that are definately non-Christian so its rather muddled really. I have started my own wiki site (not on Wikia) to document the beliefs of my own faith. I think that when the project has reached a point where it gives one a good idea, a majority of Christians would agree that my church is in fact, a Christian denomination just like any other, whatever else they might think about it or other groups unique ideas. I would like to perhaps foster some kind of working relationship between this Christianity wikia and my smaller wiki so as to give readers a good idea of as many different views on issues as possible. --BenMcLean 16:05, 8 May 2006 (UTC) :This page might be useful to you. It looks like the community here is trying for a quite inclusive definition of "Christian", which I think is great. To me, the key is to label each difference clearly so the reader can see who believes what and the differences between different Christian groups. :Looking around your wiki, it looks to me as though a lot of the content would fit well here, and that there is certainly room for interaction between the two wikis. -- sannse (talk) 08:49, 9 May 2006 (UTC) ::Yeah. We have a different POV of course but alot of paralell research. I will make it a point to cross reference between articles I write on RLDSWiki and paralell articles here. By the way, RLDSWiki has now become a Wikia wiki, making it a sister of this one. An interwiki link exists - so to link to RLDSWiki you can do this wikia:c:rlds --BenMcLean 16:46, 10 May 2006 (UTC) :::The easiest and most straightforward way to deal with this issue is to simply create a policy that defines "Christian" as exclusively those who adhere in totality to the stipulates of the Nicene Creed. This is how http://www.christianforums.com/ has dealt with the issue, for example. This issue needs to be dealt with NOW, before thorny articles begin popping up. CyberAnth 01:07, 6 October 2006 (UTC) ::::That makes sense, except for the last sentence. "We believe in one Holy, Apostolic, Catholic Church. We confess one baptism for the remission of sin, the resurrection of our dead, and life for ever and ever: Amen." - aren't there lots of Christians that don't believe in that? --BenMcLean 16:08, 6 October 2006 (UTC) :::::That depends on the definition of "catholic" -- when taken as referring to the Roman Catholic Church, obviously there are many Christians who would disagree. However there are many other churches who claim the Nicene Creed and simply understand the word "catholic" as meaning "universal" or "comprehensive" -- i.e. the Church of Jesus Christ at all times and in all places is in spiritual reality ONE church, whatever divisions we have created here on the earth. And in that sense it is a useful definition of the boundaries of what is truly Christian. :::::One more comment is that it should be specified as the Nicene Creed with or without the "filioque" clause, to include both the Eastern and Western traditions. ::::::I would point out that from a historical perspective, the Nicean - Constantinople Creed was written by the Catholic Church in 325 A.D. but is sharply disputed by certain religious groups and Christian denominations simple because Emperor Constatine was there. :::::The Nicene Creed has been officially accepted by Christian groups from all major branches of Christianity - which includes the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and many Protestant denominations such as Anglicans, Lutherans, etc. At the council of Nicea in 325 AD, maybe 2 out of 318 representatives were from the Bishop of Rome. So the definition of "catholic" is not a reference to the Roman Catholic Church - its a term referring to the universal church. Usually organizations like Christian Forums do not require acceptance of the creed itself, but agreement of its general contents. The Nicene Creed in essence defines historic, traditional Christian Trinitarian beliefs. This would include all major branches of Christianity. It would also include the RLDS or Community of Christ, because that organization is explicitly Trinitarian. Those groups who are officially not Trinitarian would be excluded from agreement of its contents. Major excluded would be the Mormons (LDS-Utah - Brigham Young), Jehovah's Witnesses, Unitarians. Also because of the statement of forward looking resurrection, the full preterist view is also excluded (full preterist is not the same as partial preterist). Lamorak 14:57, 6 July 2007 (UTC) Where next for this Wiki? Now that some of the contributors here have forked, and moved their activity to another wiki, it's time to look at the future of this Wikia. I assume that nsandwich no longer wants to be the founder of this wiki, so we need someone to adopt. We will probably need a couple of new admins too. Is anyone interested in these roles? It's a shame that there are now two competing wikis about Christianity, but I'm confident that the benefits Wikia brings will help keep this one alive and flourishing. -- sannse (talk) 08:50, 15 May 2006 (UTC) :Until a few minutes ago, I wasn't even aware that this Wiki still existed independently of the ChristWiki. I thought it has moved, not that it had schismed. BTW ChristWiki has become rather Catholic lately (Traditional Catholic, not Roman Catholic) now that Nsandwhich has imported the public domain (and often obsolete) Catholic Encyclopedia. Archola 12:28, 15 May 2006 (UTC) ::As Mindspillage and I said when Nsandwich first talked about getting his own server (see above), there will always be a Christianity Wiki here at Wikia. It's a great subject, and not one that we would want missing from the Wikia Family. Of course, the content is GFDL, which means everyone has a right to fork, but I'm sure that the Christianity Wikia will stay alive and well. -- sannse (talk) 13:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC) :::Hiya. There were a number of reasons for moving to a new server. I think the overriding one was that this page wasn't getting indexed by the search engines, even though I tried to add it numerous times. I don't know what the reason for this is, since google refuses to respond to emails :) ChristWiki just got its first visit from googlebot a few days ago and has started to be indexed, which I think is of crucial importance. :::Another BIG reason was that Homestarmy pointed out there were anti-Christian adsense ads appearing that I frankly found to be offensive. Certainly they might send the wrong impression to those visitors who are not aware that the things along the right side of the page are not endorsed by us. :::Anyway I prefer not to think of this as a schism of sorts. Christianity has already had enough of those, I think! :) It was meant to be more of a move. However, I see no reason why these two wikis can't share and collaborate. I will be devoting most of my time to ChristWiki, but I do drop by and check on this one every once in a while. In terms of passing along the foundership, I think that's a good idea. Can someone create a nomination page for new founders? We can vote and then I'll hand over the adminship. Thanks for everything, folks! :) :::-- nsandwich 19:43, 15 May 2006 (UTC) :::: Goggle is a strange thing. This site comes up second for "Christianity Knowledge Base", and first for Christianity Wikia, but not until page 4 for Christianity wiki. Wikia is in the middle of talks with some experts in search engine optimisation at the moment. That should help us find out why these strange results happen and how we can get them giving us the results we need. :::: Google ads are another thing we can sort out for this wiki. I didn't know that there were problems or I would have let you know about this. We can block a certain number of sites from having ads here. And we are happy to do that in any cases where the ads are felt to be offensive. It has to be done selectively, because we only have a small number of block spaces, but there is certainly the potential to remove problem ads. :::: Please folks, if there are any other issues, let us know. We can't fix them is we don't know about them :) Some of the points nsadwich raised earlier are replied to above, and I'm happy to add to that any time. :::: On new admins, I think the first thing is to find out who wants to keep their admin rights here. Please note that this is not a choice between the two wikis. If you want to keep your rights here, and edit primarily on the other wiki, then that's just fine. I think it's fair that you should be willing to at least call in here every now and then and check recent edits, and the more active you are the better of course! but that's all that's asked. So please say here if you are willing to continue as an admin here on the Christianity Knowledge Base. Many thanks -- sannse (talk) 09:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC) Redesign With the two wikis looking very similar, I think it might be an idea to redesign this one to show its individuality. I've been trying out some changes, and a possible new logo. To make sure you are seeing the latest experiment, please force a refresh on your browser (Ctrl F5 for most). So any thoughts? It's too orange for my taste at the moment, although I like the logo itself. Maybe a paler parchment background and a different colour scheme for the tabs and so on? Or has anyone some completely different ideas? -- sannse (talk) 13:52, 15 May 2006 (UTC) :Hi Sannse, I think it looks great! -- nsandwich 19:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC) ::Thanks! I took out the background, which I think was too much, and I'm not sure about the colours... I really hope there is someone here who can make a new scheme for the site... More feedback people please ;) -- sannse (talk) 09:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC) ::: Hi Sannse, this site looks much more alive than before. I suggest the use of a different logo(possibly a picture of a church, just an idea), and a little bit of background around the navigation menu. By the way is it possible to use CSS? :::Thanks ---inkybutton. Yes, I like the design but not the pink color. Ditch the pink. Go with a blue or purple or red or something --BenMcLean 16:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC) inkybutton: yes, the CSS file is at MediaWiki:Monobook.css, it's possible to change just about anything in the look of the site. I like the idea of a background, I tried a couple, but couldn't get one that worked well enough. The one that Ben has at RLDSWiki is very nice - subtle, but clear. So if you have any ideas for backgrounds we could use, then please say. Same for the logo - if you have a good (preferably free) image that we can use that's great. I was trying for something non-denominational... what about the same idea, but with a different coloured sunset? BenMcLean: I agree the pink is too much. I think if we can find a better logo, then we can match it to that. Or for now, I'll have a go with some different colours and see if I can find something that works. -- sannse (talk) 08:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC) :OK, I've changed the logo and colour scheme to something less... pink (it was supposed to be sort of orange, but...) You will probably need to force a refresh to see the changes (Ctrl F5 for most systems). There is something a little strange going on with the top tabs, I'll have to get somone with better css skills than me to have a look (anyone here good at stylesheets?) But please let me know what you think, and whether you have any ideas for improvements... or maybe a totally different scheme... up to you -- sannse (talk) 12:40, 18 May 2006 (UTC) I love the new blue look!! :) --BenMcLean 22:18, 18 May 2006 (UTC) The ChristianWikis Project Just thought I'd inform all of the members of the about the ChristianWikis Project. It aims at unifying the Christian wiki community... and providing a central place for people to come together, talk about their Christian wikis, and share ideas. Almost every day it seems like another Christian wiki pops up. I'm not advocating one-wiki-for-everything, I'm just saying it'd be cool if there was a place where all the wikis could communicate, and ultimately make each individual wiki even better. :-) If this at all interests any of you, please head on over to this address http://wikible.org/christianwikis --Tom 23:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC) :Sort of like a Christian Meta Wiki eh? That would be good ... --BenMcLean 16:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC) ::Link seems inactive now :/. Homestarmy 18:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC) :::See: http://wikible.org/en/Christian_wikis I really think there should be a project. It seems a big waste of energy, the way the Christian wikis are popping up from all over the place and developing side by side, without working together. Well, at least we can pray that God will make a wiki stand out in a special way or do something else to show which wiki he wants to have developed. It might also come to "survival of the fittest" or something similar. We need to work together... How about moving a lot of the content of this wiki to another wiki? I don't see the use of this wiki at all. It it's supposed to be a sort of Christian meta wiki, nobody should be working on non-meta like content. But people are. --Denise 17:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC) EVANGELISM I am very interested in modern approaches to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. What ways are being used effectively to bring the wonderfully good news to affluent communities in the U.S.? :Well there might be a conflict of interest in your question there, you ask for modern evangelism and then ask for effective ways :/. As I understand the figures, using "modern evangelism" gives a fallout rate of around 95 percent; that is to say, people here a lovely sounding exhortation to believe in Jesus, and the vast majority of them fall back away from the church as if they were never saved in the first place. See what happens is modern evangelism goes a little something like this: "Good morning boys and girls. I'm here to tell you that God has a....WOOOONDERFUL plan for your life. You see, if you ask Jesus into your heart, you will gain many many good things. You'll get love, peace, joy, happiness, a new car, your mortage payments will go through on time, etc. etc., so come on down to the church today! We only want to sing nice songs with you.....come be our friend.....joooooin usssss......" Yea, see, its not a very strong message really. Sure, it doesn't go exactly like that, but im just making a loose summary, the point is, the ways being used aren't effective these days. As for working on affluent communities, the problems of the modern gospel multiply several times, why should people who are well-to-do even respond to the modern gospel at all when they often times already have what they consider to be happiness from their money or success? :I could try to help you out and teach you how to give a stronger message which will actually save people mostly, but it could take me a very long time to type it all out, the explanation gets involved. In short, you've got to do what Jesus did, and use the Law to reach out to people. In the parable of the woman at the well, Jesus reminded the woman of her sins before giving her the good news, something modern evangelism would probably shun since its not a happy-go-lucky sort of message. The best way to evangelize would therefore be in line what what Jesus was doing, namely, to use the Law of God to show people their sins and thusly give them the real reason to come to Christ, not to get money and success, but to be given eternal life, and avoid the condemnation of an infinitly just God who must judge sin, and thusly, would send anyone who is not saved to Hell. If you have a good bit of free time, go to this website http://www.wayofthemaster.com here, read and listen to as much as you can, (Preferably starting with the audio message entitled "Hell's best kept secret") and if you have any questions, come back and ask me. Homestarmy 07:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC) ::Yeah, evangelism has been a much-discussed topic lately in my church, both locally and internationally. In international mission fields, there has been an "explosion" in the last few years, according to a paper I read yesterday, but it's been rather slow going here in the U.S. ::It is quite possible that, unless evangelism in the U.S. improves for my church, we may have more foriegn members than domestic. (we're based in the U.S.) --BenMcLean 16:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC) :::I too have heard these stories about explosive growth on other continents, I hear numbers like 200,000 people in China being converted a year and whatnot, and I think even some Islamic imam type person sent out some warning that "Islam is being sent in retreat in Africa as Christianity is taking over". I do not, however, know what sort of message these people are recieving precisely :/. Homestarmy 06:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC) ::::Yeah, nobody's sure what they should be converting people to - hence our little "What is a Christian?" discussion. --BenMcLean 17:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC) :::::It's possible that the numbers may be artifically inflated as well, considering many who "make a decision" for Christ may never actually show up for church ever again or show any sign of being born again :/. Homestarmy 18:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC) ::::::That is not so much of a possibility in my church as it is in yours. I mean, people might leave after only being members for a while, but since we practice literal baptisms by immersion, and then only for people who make an informed choice and obviously take it seriously, the number of actual members is counted, not just "converts" --BenMcLean 15:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC) :::::::Well im talking the number of Christians as a whole from all denominations, not yours in particular :). 68.219.82.144 21:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC) An open letter to users and administrators of the various different Christian wikis Hello, Thanks for reading my two cents worth. As a bit of background information, my name is G. Grove and you can contact me at graham_grove@yahoo.com.au to discuss any of the following issues. I've been involved in Christian wikis for a while now. In fact, I first tried to set up a Christianity book in wikibooks 2 years ago, but then I discovered that there were three other Christian wikis at the time and I left the wikibook and joined WikiChristian. At the time there was also Compass and Theopedia, but not anything else. In an attempt to try and get WikiChristian used more I started the wikipedia article "Christian wikis" and have since watched an explosion of links appear. That there are all these people wanting to be involved in spreading the gospel and knowledge of Jesus and Christianity through wikis is a wonderful thing. I especially respect those users and administrators who acknowledge other Christian wiki sites as well as their own. Every one of these wikis has some excellent points. Theopedia is full of academic articles; wikible is intelligently set out; biblewiki is commendable for its extensive linking; wikiChristian is admirable because of its attempt to cover all things Christian including be a directory for all the churches of the world; and I could go on and on about each wiki. Despite all these wonderful qualities and the hearts behind them, I believe Christian wikis are failing in what I see as their two most important objectives in glorify God. Firstly, to be a body of knowledge where Christians actually come to learn about a topic, and to actively be involved in writing and updating articles; and secondly, to be a witness to non-Christians about what Christianity is all about. It is obvious to me that the wikis are not used by more than a couple people for each site, and that non-Christians are not reading them either. Why is this failure occurring? I believe there is one very important overriding fact that is stifling the use and growth of all of these wikis. They are all essentially modelled closely on Wikipedia. Why is this a problem? Well, wikipedia is a great encyclopedia – a fantastic reference and very useable and helpful. So, if I want to know about say, the “Coptic Orthodox Church” why would I go anywhere else?! I would only go anywhere else if that anywhere else presenting the information differently and allowed me to easily see what I was most interested in. I might for example be interested in knowing about the persecution of the Coptic church in Egypt today. To learn about that, I am going to want read testimonies about peoples experiences living in Egypt. I might want to know about the formation of the Coptic church. To learn about this, I am going to want to firstly read an encylopedia style overview article about the council of Chalcedon and monophysitism, but then I going to want to read different peoples views on interpreting these topics – their opinions are important because I know that there are many interpretations – there is not perhaps one “Christian viewpoint” for this. However, I might want to find a local Coptic church to visit – and so I would need a list or index of Coptic churches – their addresses and service times and what language they were in. Now Wikipedia wouldn’t be a particularly useful source for some of what I want and certainly isn’t set out in a way that it is easy to find some of that information. No, the wiki I am looking for would be different, however, it just doesn’t exist currently. There are also lots of other little factors that I believe stifle the growth of the various Christian wikis. These include # The use of unhelpful usernames. Why can’t we all use our real names as our user names. It makes us less anonymous # The complaints that seem to arise whenever someone writes an article in an essay style presenting his viewpoint, rather than in an encyclopedia style. Articles should be able to have sentences starting with “I think”. Now these are clearly individual opinion articles, and so need to be marked as such. But Christianity is a personal religion, and people have opinions which differ. “I think” is valid. # Vandalism – but I don’t know what to do about that – perhaps the only way to stop it is to have a critical number of users # The unwritten rule that an article about the local church down the road is not acceptable. What is wrong with writing an article about my church down the road and writing about its minister, congregation, teaching, music and service times? Nothing as far as I can see! # The layout is never particularly logical. There are I’m sure lots more issues that other people have thought of. And of course you may vehemently disagree with me on each or every point. I welcome comments. Please leave comments on WikiChristian's “Christian wikis” talk page (http://www.wikichristian.org/index.php/Talk:Christian_wikis) (so others can read them, or email me. I have been fiddling with ideas, templates and trialling out different formats for a Christian wiki that I believe would work – it would hopefully be acceptable to those who want an encyclopedia, those who want testimonies, those who want opinions and discussion, those who want stacks of information with directories of churches, lyrics of songs and public domain texts. Please take a look at my version on my home computer (hopefully it is turned on and working if you go to look at it) – www.grahamgrove.dyndns.org and click on the link to Christianity. Thanks for your time. I think those of us who want a Christian wiki need some discussion, and perhaps we need to put together a larger group of people to work on one encompassing wiki rather than dozens of small wikis. Graham :Here's another problem with Christian wikis: They're hosted on private sites, therefore there is no "centrality" to them. I think this wiki, since it's hosted by Wikia Inc., is more "central". I think it might be good for this wiki to specialize in apologetics. :What we could do is perhaps form some sort of ChristianWiki Foundation (sort of like the MediaWiki Foundation) and, under that heading, have a "Christian Meta Wiki", which would work like Meta-Wiki, and under that heading have different projects: One for encyclopedic articles, one for general Christian apologetics that links to wikis of different denominations to show what they think on different topics, one for an international church directory, one for Christian music of all kinds, and perhaps some other projects as well. New projects and/or the joining of existing projects would be discussed at the "Meta-Wiki". If it was done this way, we wouldn't be modeled after Wikipedia, but after the foundation that started Wikipedia - so we'd have all of the advantages without the drawbacks, you see? --BenMcLean 13:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC) :I attempted to respond to this same letter and work with Graham at WikiChristian, but I wasn't getting any interest there; plus, the MediaWiki version there is grossly outdated, making it hard to work on. Ben, I like your thoughts about a Christian Meta, but I think CKB could probably serve as this central hub. It is already on Wikia, providing a reliable server location. We could redesign this Community Portal (CP) (maybe even the Welcome page) to emphasize a "Collaboration" page (or set of pages, maybe featuring the Forum namespace). I don't think we would need a whole, separate, site just for collaboration purposes. This CP could also emphasize a separate CKB-only CP. I like your IRC idea below, too. :Also, in working on a Christian wikis chart over at Wikible, I noticed that CKB and ChristWiki have very different page counts (528 vs. 11911). Why would ChristWiki have so many more considering that it's a fork of CKB? Does Wikia calculate it differently? See my chart and footnote for more details. --RockOfVictory 20:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC) :::Because Nsandwhich imported the entire Old Catholic Encyclopedia last May, shortly after the schism fork. There was a move to reform the ChristWiki in July, but the site is now a ghosttown. As it stands, it has a heavy Traditional Catholic (pre-Vatican II) bias. I'll keep my eye out for user-created articles (such as Babylon) that I can merge back here. Archola 00:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC) ::Ben, I'm sorry. I think I misread you the first time. Are you saying that the CKB should basically be renamed to the "ChristianWiki Foundation"? I think it may be too difficult to totally convert this existing wiki; plus, I doubt that different denominations could agree on the topics that the "meta" would have. Instead, I think that it's important just to have a central community of Christian MediaWiki users; focus would be on understanding the resources that each wiki has, not on creating a meta-topical-encyclopedia of Christianity. Check out some recent collaboration comments over at OrthodoxWiki. --J. J. 01:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC) "What is wrong with writing an article about my church down the road and writing about its minister, congregation, teaching, music and service times? Nothing as far as I can see!" Me neither. Archola 21:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC) :Any other thoughts about the "ChristianWiki Foundation", Archola? --J. J. 13:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC) ::I'm caught in the middle of the debate between ecumenicalism and unionism, which might make sense only to a Lutheran like myself. Let me put it this way: Do it right, and it's a good idea. Do it wrong, and it's an inquisition. Pray, and let the Holy Spirit guide you to the correct decision. ::In other words, I'm undecided. Archola 01:04, 29 August 2006 (UTC) What I meant by a "ChristianWiki Foundation Meta-Wiki" was a wiki that is a list of all other sites running the MediaWiki software that claim to be Christian, that also serves as a discussion board about Christian wikis in general - it's a knowledge base about Christian knowledge bases, not about Christianity. It could also contain resources that christian wiki webmasters and users could find helpful, like templates for quoting scripture, ways of quickly copying different versions of the Bible (or even the apocropha or the Book of Mormon) onto wikis, a directory of all different denominations that have wikis and their web addresses, that kind of stuff. --BenMcLean 16:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC) I've created a new page to address this topic: Christianity Knowledge Base:ChristianKM. --J. J. 20:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC) "Free Content" Christian Devotionals I was at an evangelism meeting last night with several pastors from my church and we are thinking of trying to put together a newsletter that is basically for going "fishing" for people interested in learning more about what the Bible says and/or about our church. Well, actually the meeting was for a comprehensive local evangelism program, but the newsletter was the main thing that was discussed. If either this wiki or some other Christian wiki had some basic bible-based Christian devotionals that don't get into contraversial doctrines, it would save us alot of work because then we'd just have to edit them a bit and reprint them, not totally write a whole new devotional series. Would anyone be interested in starting some kind of project like that, and how would we do it? --BenMcLean 15:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC) :If by "devotionals" you mean "Gospel tracts", I don't know of any free ones, but if your church can afford it, there's a bunch of great gospel tracts here that aren't too expensive. (Their mostly in packages of 100) Homestarmy 14:14, 4 August 2006 (UTC) ::No, I didn't mean tracts I meant just ... devotionals ... The things they put on those Christian inspirational calendars. Short basic lessons with scriptures to study along with them. You know ? --BenMcLean 17:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC) ::I think ChristWiki would like that :) Nsandwich forked CKB there to start a more independent wiki. But now, no offence, nearly everyone has flew the nest. Only me, Archola and Homestarmy are active. We would really like some new people contributing, and it doesn't matter what ever they do (well, something to do with Christianity!), as long as they can keep up the spirit there, I think Nsandwich will be delighted. --[[User:inkybutton | inkybutton]] [[User talk:inkybutton|'talkie?'] 00:53, 2 September 2006 (UTC) : "Only me, Archola and Homestarmy are active." And DavidSpencer.ca. He's new. Archola 05:42, 4 September 2006 (UTC) :::Yeah I realize that. It looks like that happened just a little before I got here. I'm not movin. :) --BenMcLean 16:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC) Christian IRC channel? Maybe we ought to get an IRC channel on FreeNode for this project. My church's wiki got one. --BenMcLean 15:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC) Christianity Wikia Chat Room Christianity Wikia Chat Room You might also like to check out Chatzy.com if you need a private chat. --Ermeyers BFS forums proposal One of our new users has proposed setting up the Forum namespace here. Please see User talk:Ermeyers#Forums I suggest for the full discussion. --J. J. 14:53, 16 August 2006 (UTC) :I second the idea. I first established forums on RLDSWiki just the other day. You may be interested in copying the design of the prayer request board there. --BenMcLean 23:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC) ::Hi Ben, I've asked Lisa (sannse) at Wikia to give us the first two in the standard forum setup, and I'll be talking with her fairly soon on my talk page about the subforums that I want. Right now Help desk and Chronic Illness, and other forums are real easy to add after the first two get put in. --Ermeyers 23:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC) ::And Ben, I added Prayers Help desk to my future forums list.:) --Ermeyers 23:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC) :::RLDSWiki's prayer request forum is setup to keep track of the dates of which requests are current and which are old - using similar technology to WikiNews. That was kind of what I was referring to. --BenMcLean 16:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC) I'd like to adopt this Christianity Wikia Please read User:Ermeyers#About Me. Response I think that was more a request for sysop, because unless I am mistaken, this wiki has a caretaker already. I would be glad to help also, if needed. --BenMcLean 22:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC) :Hi Ben, Who's the official care taker? Thanks. --Ermeyers 23:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC) ::It was Nsandwhich, but he's long gone. Sasne is staff, so I guess Sasne is in charge. ::BTW I am the ONLY sysop that has been active since last May...Archola 07:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC) Steering Committee forum What do you think about having a Steering Committee forum to be able to openly discuss the future direction of this Chrisitanity Wikia? I personally don't like the Watercooler forum, like it's typically called in Wikia's standard setup to hint at everyone being at work and casually conducting major business affairs discussions at the watercooler. By having a Steering Committee forum, the Community Portal can be relieved of being so busy with community management and Wiki development discussions, and it can then better focus on the basic community familiarization and other general community discussions. --Ermeyers 00:29, 18 August 2006 (UTC) :Well, we aren't exactly busy right now here anyway heh. 68.219.82.144 21:23, 18 August 2006 (UTC) ::Hi Anonymous "Son of the South" :), You're very correct, and that's a fairly sad and unfortunate truth. Let's change that together. Eric --Ermeyers 12:24, 19 August 2006 (UTC) Forums OK, I've set up the forums. I went for a slightly different setup than that suggested by Eric for practical reasons, the layout looks very strange if you have a forum with posts and a sub-forum. So I've added three forums: "help desk", "steering committee", and "chronic illness". "Chronic illness" is an index only, with two forums "general" and "PNH". I'd suggest not further splitting "PNH", people can differentiate what they are talking about in their posts. More levels will make it more difficult to use in my opinion. Let me know if you get stuck with making any changes you want, or if anything doesn't seem to work as it should. -- sannse (talk) 07:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC) More Admins Needed I was just browsing , and there seem to be a lot of inactive users: *Archola ‎(Sysop) Last contribution (now) *Averykrouse ‎(Sysop) Last contribtion 30 March 2006 *BishopBob ‎(Sysop) Last contribution 25 March 2006 (and only 1 conbtrib!) *Empty2005 ‎(Sysop) Last contribution 31 March 2006 *Hayson1991 ‎(Sysop) Last contribution 19 May 2006 *Nsandwich ‎(Bureaucrat, Sysop) Last contribution 15 May 2006 So, where is everybody? And who's now in charge of this site? It was Nsandwhich, but I haven't seen him since last May. This site is growing, and we need more active sysops. Archola 07:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC) PS: Sannse is staff, so I guess she's in charge... Archola 07:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC) :Nope, you (the community) are in charge :) Just let me know who you decide should be admins, and I'll click the buttons -- sannse (talk) 20:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC) ::Just look below ;) Archola 23:41, 28 August 2006 (UTC) PPS: I'd like to inform the (relative) newcomers of CKB:RAA. Archola 07:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC) Comments on bureaucrat *I responded on the steering committee page, and I will sysop if needed. We need a top dog bureaucrat, and I think that Archola is a good candidate for now, since he's been here for a while. We really need to get completely organized as Christians, and start sending the right message of complete success, rather than the wrong message of a failure by complete abandonment. This is a good place, so let's try to do the right things together. Let's decide on the correct name for this place, and find out what God needs us to do for Him, rather than what we want to do for ourselves individually. Sannse is not a Christian, and I don't have any personal issue with that, because I know her good work, and I can always count on her to help me when I need some good help from Wikia. Eric --Ermeyers 02:46, 31 August 2006 (UTC) :I'm not sure if I'm ready to be a bureaucrat. What's involved? Archola 04:15, 31 August 2006 (UTC) 04:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC) :As a bureaucrat in ChristWiki, I found it easy. Basically it's admin with the privilege to promote users. -[[User:inkybutton | inkybutton]] ::I previously referred to my adoption of this wiki, and the bureaucrats are basically the parents of the wiki who can oversee the development and the advancement of the people involved in the wiki. I've got adminship in other Wikia as well. --Ermeyers 04:58, 2 September 2006 (UTC) :::Are you volunteering? Archola 01:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC) ::The founder of a wiki can take that role, and it's needed because they start as the only user. And sometimes adoption is needed for a dead wiki. But when there is a healthy community, there isn't the need for a founder to take the "parent" role, the community can guide itself. In that situation the bureaucrat becomes simply the person who is trusted to assess community opinion and click the buttons to make someone admin. They do not generally have a bigger say in any other aspect of the wiki's operation. So on this wiki, what Inkybutton said is correct. -- sannse (talk) 18:59, 4 September 2006 (UTC) Volunteers for Sysop/RfA All administrator nominations are currently at Christianity Knowledge Base:Requests for adminship. All future nominations must be made there. -- Justin M. / Talk 02:31, 21 October 2006 (UTC) Welcome commitee I just formed Christian Knowledge Base:Welcoming committee. Inkybutton and I have been the informal welcoming commitee, but I haven't seen Inkybutton since May 30. I thought it was time to formalize this. If interested, please visit the page and sign in. Template:Welcome is the template we use. Archola 07:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC) Featured articles, current news The ChristWiki had a couple of features that IMHO would work here, namely Current Events and the Featured Article (both are shown on the welcome page, http://christ.relately.com. Unfortunately, the only featured articles at CW were Slavery and Hell...and I think that's what damned the site! (Well, that and the fact that the old CE is outdated). Perhaps an Featured article canidate page, article creation and improvement drive, and other ideas borrowed from Wikipedia? Archola 01:58, 29 August 2006 (UTC) :Yes, it seemed unbelievably stupid of them to feature those two articles first, out of all the topics in the world. --BenMcLean 15:29, 1 September 2006 (UTC) ::I am sorry, but who are you calling stupid? :) I featured Hell, so probably it's not so appropriate. But Hell is the only article that I can see potential in. The rest are CE rubbish or 1 or 2 lines of stubs. BTW I removed FA and Current Events sections so people don't have to rush to complete another article for featuring on the main page. --inkybutton :::You shouldn't have had a "featured article" section until you had at least one good, positive article to feature then. How the front page looks affects new visitors more than anything else on a site. People goto a "Christian" site, and the first thing they see is "Slavery" and "Hell" ... what are they going to think then? --BenMcLean 16:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC) ::::How about Salvation and Heaven? Archola 22:10, 7 September 2006 (UTC) :::::Exactly. :) --BenMcLean 16:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC) User:Robosandwich and articles from other Wikis Some time ago, Nsandwhich created a bot to import articles from other wikis. We obtained all the articles that existed then from * AnglicanWiki (which is now down) and * OrthodoxWiki (A's only) * Theopedia (A's and B's only) Is there any reason not to run the bot to import the rest of Theopedia & Orthodoxwiki? And what about Ben's RLDSWiki? Any other suggestions? We also need some more Catholic stuff on this Wiki...but, please, DO NOT import the Old Catholic Encyclopedia. It has far too many problems. Of course, self-created articles are best. Any thoughts, complaints or rotten tomatoes? Archola 06:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC) :I think that RLDSWiki is probably going to have some sections within articles that this wiki might want to fork, but probably not many entire articles, since there's a difference in the POV. We'll probably have alot of the same templates and stuff though. --BenMcLean 16:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC) ::Well, of course there is Template:CPOV-Specific to consider. Maybe rename the articles RLDS view of ....? Archola 08:03, 7 September 2006 (UTC) :::That might work. --BenMcLean 16:36, 8 September 2006 (UTC) Not so current events Current events was last updated in June for ChristWiki and in April here (I just merged the two versions). Someone needs to adopt this page and keep it up-to date. Archola 06:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC) Bible timeline I've just extended the Bible timeline from creation in the 39th century BC to the division of the Israelite monarchy in the 10th century BC. This is based on a literal reading of Genesis, Exodus, 1 Kings, &c, and assumes that Abraham was born in 1900 BC and that Joseph became Governor of Egypt during the period of Hyksos rule. Interestingly enough, I'm about 86 years off the calculations made for the Hebrew Calandar. Since I used some approximations and Wikipedia notes that 165 years are missing from the Hebrew Calandar, I think +-86 years isn't too bad over a span of nearly 3000 years. Archola 22:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC) :Okay, now the century timeline runs from Timeline to 21st century. Whew! I leave it to others to do the year timelines. Archola 06:04, 11 September 2006 (UTC) ::Hey, wait a second ... exactly when the Earth was created is disputed among many Christians. --BenMcLean 14:55, 11 September 2006 (UTC) :::Definitely. That's what the dating creation article is for. :::I list at least 7 YEC dates at beginning of time, 40th century BC, 39th century BC, and 38th century BC. Okay, so actually 6 are Christian and one is Jewish. For the early patriarchs, I just started with a date of 1900 BC for Abraham (as listed in that article) and worked backwards from the chronologies in the Book of Genesis. There is a disclaimer that all dates are approximate. Don't worry, I'll add the OEC dates as well. :::There's a website called Answers in Genesis, but I think the real answers are in Job. God asks Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding." (Job 38:4) Archola 02:48, 12 September 2006 (UTC) ::::That's cool. I was just concerned that we don't anchor things down and say "The Bible Says This" when actually what we mean is "We Interpret What the Bible Says This Way" --BenMcLean 16:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC) Admins I've just been reminded that I didn't sort out more admins for you. Inkybutton and BenMcLean both seemed to be accepted above, but Inkybutton hasn't been around for a while. So I have admined Ben, and will be happy to admin Inkybutton if he returns. Although, Archola can do that if needed, because I've also made him a bureaucrat. As always, call me if you need any help :) -- sannse (talk) 16:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC) :Wow, hey thanks. ( ) (starts banning random people) - just kidding! :) --BenMcLean 01:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC) Notice All administrator nominations are currently at Christianity Knowledge Base:Requests for adminship. All future nominations must be made there. -- Justin M. / Talk 15:20, 21 October 2006 (UTC) Bible study wiki There is a Bible study wiki. http://biblestudy.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page. -- 18:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC) Deletion Per a request from a talk page on Wikia, I've created a deletion template which can be used with a single parameter (|), made by pressing shift+\, to provide a reason. Articles tagged with this template are automatically placed in Category:Candidates for deletion. John Reaves 07:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC) :Thank you very much! I appreciate you fulfilling my request. Poetic 07:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC) Seventh-Day Adventist Hello, I am actually a memeber of the Seventh-Day Adventist denominational group and I just found this website. It is amazing to see a website where I can post things and bring ideas of my denomination to proper light. One thing is, I want to know if I can just change the saying under Christianity about other books that are considered by some denominations to be equal to the bible. The thing is, we do not believe that Ellen G. White's writings are on par with the bible, we do believe she was a prophet and her words were inspired, but they are not on par with the bible. (Colporteur Ministry, p. 125.) While we believe her books were inspired, they are subject to the bible and the bible only. I will also try to get as much known about the Seveth-Day Adventist denomination as possible and will try to get some post up about subjects concerning my denomination and beliefs. May God bless you. Treatise on Law (text) Hi, I produced the Treatise on Law text for Wikisource. Your text at the above location was derived from version at Wikisource. When I was preparing the text of the translation, I made a few changes to it to make it easier to read based on my knowledge of Aquinas' original Latin text ("few" changes as in 15 words). I have come to think this was a mistake. Now I believe the need to maintain the integrity of the original translation text as well as the need to avoid the appearance of copyright infringement (some of the words also appear in a later translation that may be still copyrighted) outweighs the benefit of an easier-to-read translation. I'm not able to revert the changes myself either because I don't have an account here or because the page has been locked. But if someone here wants to help me fix it, the solution is probably not very difficult: you can simply edit the page and clear the text, bring up the text of the Wikisource version found at en.wikisource.org under the page title "Treatise on Law", copy it into the clipboard (if you have an old computer, you might want to break up the text into smaller parts, as it's about 750K) and paste the text into the Treatise on Law (text) article. The current version at Wikisource is the corrected version. Or alternately, unlock the page, and I'll do it myself, if that's allowed. Thank you for considering my request. 216.165.199.50 13:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC) Bible verse "articles" Just out of curiosity, why do we need all of these "articles" that just have the text of the Bible? If necessary, we could quote them in the article that references them, or run a link to an online Bible site. I don't quite understand why these articles are necessary. Uncommin Sense 01:04, 8 June 2007 :Reference. The orginal founder of the site (Nsandwhich) thought it best to have the Bible, various creeds and other religious texts onsite, rather than link to BibleGateWay or another site. :Cf Category:Religious texts. Archola 17:20, 13 June 2007 (UTC) ::I agree. It's helpful to have these texts right on the Wikia. -AMK152 17:44, 13 June 2007 (UTC)